Debra Winger

Debra Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress.

Biography

Early life

Winger was born Mary Debra Winger in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the daughter of Ruth (née Felder), an office manager, and Robert Winger, a meat packer. She was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. In the early 1970s, she spent several months at Beit Zera, a kibbutz in Israel. She has stated publicly and with amusement that the Internet has a growing "snowball" of claims that she had been part of a kibbutz in Israel, whereas she says she was merely on a typical Israeli youth program that visited the kibbutz. After returning to the United States, she was involved in an automobile accident and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage as a result. She was left partially paralyzed and blind for ten months, although she was initially told that she would never see again. With time on her hands to think about her life, she decided that, if she recovered, she would move to California and become an actress.

Career

Winger's first acting role was as "Debbie" in the 1976 sexploitation film Slumber Party '57. Her next role was as Diana Prince's younger sister Drusilla (Wonder Girl) in the Wonder Woman television series. Winger got her first starring role in Urban Cowboy in 1980, opposite John Travolta, for which she received a BAFTA award nomination. In 1982, she co-starred with Nick Nolte in Cannery Row and opposite Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Winger's acting work has received critical acclaim. Winger was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress twice more: for Terms of Endearment in 1983, and for Shadowlands 1993, for which she also received her second BAFTA award nomination. Winger was originally cast in the lead role in A League of their Own but dropped out and was replaced by Geena Davis.

In 1995, Winger turned 40 and began a hiatus from the film industry, during which she spent a semester as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. In 2001, a critically acclaimed documentary film titled Searching for Debra Winger was made by Rosanna Arquette and released in 2002 after Winger returned to performing. Other films include Legal Eagles, Made in Heaven, Everybody Wins, The Sheltering Sky, Leap of Faith, Black Widow, Betrayed, Wilder Napalm, A Dangerous Woman and Sometimes in April. She earned an Emmy Award nomination for her title role in the television film Dawn Anna in 2005, directed by her second husband, Arliss Howard.

In 1995, Winger performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), and issued on CD and video in 1996.

In 2008, Winger wrote a book based on her personal recollections titled "Undiscovered. She got also rave reviews as Anne Hathaway's mother in Rachel Getting Married.

Personal life

From 1986 to 1990, she was married to actor Timothy Hutton and is currently married (since 1996) to actor Arliss Howard, and has a son from each marriage: Noah Hutton (born in 1987) and Babe Howard (born in 1997). She dated Bob Kerrey, who was Governor of Nebraska at the time, while filming Terms of Endearment in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Academy Award nominations

• 1982 Best Actress An Officer and a Gentleman
• 1983 Best Actress Terms of Endearment
• 1993 Best Actress Shadowlands

Filmography

• Slumber Party '57 (1976)
• Wonder Woman (3 episodes 1976-77)
• Thank God It's Friday (1978)
• The Warriors (Uncredited) (1979)
• French Postcards (1979)
• Urban Cowboy (1980)
• Cannery Row (1982)
• An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
• Terms of Endearment (1983)
• Mike’s Murder (1984)
• Legal Eagles (1986)
• Black Widow (1987)
• Made in Heaven (1987)
• Betrayed (1988)
• Everybody Wins (1990)
• ''The Sheltering Sky (1990)
• Leap of Faith (1992)
• Wilder Napalm (1993)
• Shadowlands (1993)
• A Dangerous Woman (1993)
• Forget Paris (1995)
• Big Bad Love (2001)
• Radio (2003)
• Eulogy (2004)
• Sometimes in April (2005)
• Dawn Anna (2005)
• Rachel Getting Married (2008)

References

External links

• Debra Winger at the Internet Movie Database
• Transcript of Radio 4 interview